I have written to the Local Government
Ombudsman for help, but their investigator gave me to understand that most of
my complaints do not come under their remit and therefore they have not
investigated them.If necessary I may
request the Ombudsman to reconsider, but I am first giving you the opportunity
to rectify the problems, particularly in view of the fact that I have not as
yet brought all aspects of my complaint before the Ombudsman.

There are several aspects to
my complaint, as shown below.

Failure to Follow Correct Procedure in Assessing My
Application

In July 2004 the former
Social Services (now Children and Young People’s Services) informed me that
they would not proceed any further with my application to become a foster carer
of children in care.

I have repeatedly asked the
former Social Services for the reasons that my application was turned down but
they have given no consistent explanation.

Currently 10,000 more foster carers are needed,
according to one fostering organisation.Indeed, in a story published on May the 25th 2006 it is
stated that Derby City Council “currently needs to find 40 new foster carers”,
partly to prevent cared for children from having to go into children’s homes or
to foster carers outside Derby.My
reasons for applying remain unchanged:there is a need, and I think I could help to meet it.I pursued the matter because this
need has not gone away.

Two social workers from Derby City Council left me
part of a photocopied booklet entitled Becoming a foster carer:An applicant’s guide to the assessment
process (put out by the Fostering Network).This booklet explains that there are fourteen areas of
competence.These are outlined in the
extensive reference questionnaires that referees fill in.The booklet goes on to say that we “do not
need to be equally able in every area”, and that the job of the social worker
allocated to prospective carers is to help them to “recognise the skills you
already have, and work with you in developing new ones”, both now and after
being approved to foster.They evidently do not expect applicants to
have perfect references;there are
issues to be dealt with, and that is why they train us.We are not expected to have all the
necessary skills at the beginning of the training process.

When applying for a job, people get turned down
because although their qualifications are good, somebody else’s are
better.But in the case of foster
carers, the agencies need all the
people they can get, so long as they are suitable after training.They do not turn people down because
they do not want to train them, as might happen in the case of applying for
normal paid work.With fostering,
candidates get assessed for six months, and they are trained in that time … and
continue to be trained after the applicant has become a foster carer.

Additionally, the booklet Becoming a foster carer:An applicant’s guide to the assessment process says that if our
application is turned down then we should discuss with the social worker the
reasons for this.The same document
also advises that if we are interested in reapplying then the assessment panel
may have made a recommendation about something we need to do to make them more
favourable to a future application.At
no time have the former Social Services done this.I
have repeatedly asked what there is in my application or the related evidence
to make the former Social Services think I can never be suitable to become a
foster carer, even after training, but they refuse to answer.

They have been unhelpful in
the extreme.I have specifically asked
on which of their own criteria outlined in the fourteen competencies they fail
me, and they consistently refuse to state.Yet all my personal references gave some very positive evidence
and every single one of the fourteen competencies contains positive
evidence from my referees, in some cases very positive.

Nor is it simply that the
former Social Services turned down my application, but they told me that there
was no point in reapplying.

It is relevant to note that my personal referees were
unanimous in saying that I am very good at being trained, so any possible
doubts could have been addressed and would not have proved to be an
insurmountable obstacle.But the
former Social Services made no attempt to address any alleged outstanding
issues.

It is also relevant to note that on two separate
occasions Derby City Council’s former Social Services placed one or two
children with me, after checking the prospective child’s bedroom.One occasion was before my application to
become a foster carer, and the second was in March 2005, after I had been
turned down.

In view of this second occasion, I asked Katie Harris (Head of Service for
Fostering and Adoption) to reconsider my application in May 2005 based on this further
evidence, but she refused, and indeed did not even mention the matter in her
response to my letter.

I had been told, in a letter dated June the 8th
2004 from Sally Penrose (the Fostering Manager), that she
hoped to allocate my assessment to a social worker shortly.My prospective social worker would
presumably have addressed any issues, yet the former Social Services have done nothing to assess whether any
doubts that they may have about me are valid or insurmountable.

These points are made not mainly in order to assess
whether or not I am capable of becoming suitable to be a foster carer, once
trained, but to demonstrate that the former Social Services have failed to
evaluate the evidence properly.In
view of the very positive evidence that has been produced in my references,
surely nobody is benefited by this approach, with the possible exception of
social workers who have decided for their own reasons that they do not wish to
work with me.

Please would you investigate this matter
for me.In particular, would you get
the former Social Services to write telling me exactly how I fall short of
their own fourteen competencies for becoming a foster carer, and advising me
also how I might amend any problems.

Even apart from the above
comments, the
Fostering Services Regulations 2002 state:

“If
a fostering service provider considers that a person is not suitable to act as
a foster parent it shall -

(a)give
him written notice that it proposes not to approve him, together with its
reasons and a copy of the fostering panel's recommendation;and

(b)invite
him to submit any written representations within 28 days of the date of the
notice.”

At no time has the former
Social Services done this, and therefore they surely cannot validly disapprove
me as a foster carer until they have followed this procedure.If they do not wish to pursue my
application for any reason, then once they have withdrawn their original
decision of July 2004 they should give me written notice of their proposal
not to approve me, together with all their reasons and a copy of the fostering
panel’s recommendation and give me the opportunity to respond.

I have requested the Council
to reverse their decision not to pursue my application to become a foster
carer, on the basis that the Council did not follow the proper procedure in
making this decision, but they have failed to comply with this request.Mr Michael Foote, the Deputy Chief
Executive, claims that the Fostering Services Regulations 2002 quoted above “do
not apply to [my] situation but to candidates whose completed assessment was
turned down by the Fostering Panel”.However, Derby City Council’s own Fostering Services Policy and
Procedures Section 5.19 say “Where a social worker feels that an application
should not proceed at any stage during the assessment, this should always be
discussed with the relevant Service Manager.”Section 5.20 of Derby’s Policy and Procedures goes on to say, “If the
Service Manager is in agreement, the applicant will be informed of the reasons
for not proceeding.If they do not
accept the reasons given, they will be informed by letter of their right to
appeal to the Fostering Panel, by making written representations within 28 days
of the date of the letter.”This quite
clearly would apply to me, even though my assessment was not completed, since
Section 5.19 provides for applicants who are not approved at any stage
during the assessment.Mr Foote
refers to the appeal as being applicable only to those whose assessment has
been completed and turned down by the Fostering Panel, but Derby’s own Policy
and Procedures state that we can appeal to the Fostering Panel whatever
stage of the assessment we were in.

In view of the former Social
Services’ failure to follow proper procedure, it seems to me that Derby City
Council has no reasonable alternative but to backtrack and now follow that
procedure.

Misrepresentation
of the Facts

I am very concerned that
senior social workers from the Fostering and Adoption Team of Derby’s former
Social Services (now the Children and Young People’s Department) seriously
misrepresented the facts, and attempted to hide the real reason for
non-acceptance of my application by falsely making out that the reasons were
contained in confidential references from three of my personal referees.This is a very serious matter:I am somewhat loath to say this, but it
looks to me as if Katie Harris (Head of Service for Fostering
and Adoption) flagrantly
lied to me.

Initially, for a period of
months, the former Social Services and in particular Katie Harris insisted that
the reasons they had turned me down were “initial concerns” together with
information contained in confidential personal references, and that they could
therefore not be more specific.

Thus in a letter dated July
the 16th 2004, Sally Penrose (the Fostering Manager) mentions
“initial concerns” about my accommodation and number of pets.She then states that they had received
“some adverse references.As this information
is confidential I am not able to disclose full details”.Subsequently I received a letter dated
August the 4th 2004 from Katie Harris (Head of Service for Fostering
and Adoption), in which she states “due to confidentiality I am unable to
expand on our decision any further”.

Yet subsequently Katie
Harris does just this, that is she does expand on their decision, as does Anna
Pollard their solicitor.The only confidential
references were three of my personal references, as opposed to those references
from any other source.Indeed, before
eventually disclosing the references (or any of the evidence) to my solicitor,
Katie Harris wrote to these three of my personal referees asking their
permission to disclose (all three gave this permission);she did not write to the other sources (apparently)
asking their permission because their references were not confidential.

But the former Social Services
now claims alleged reasons which are not contained in any of the three
confidential personal references, instead coming from other evidence.This looks to me like making up excuses
after the event.Granted their
disinclination to tell me what my confidential personal referees had
said without permission, they could have told me as long ago as July 2004 the
other alleged reasons, those which were obtained from other specified sources
including Derby City Social Services.

Thus in a letter of July the
4th 2005, Katie Harris states that I had “already been given the
outline explanation in the letter of 16th July 2004”, and says that
I have asked for further detailed information as to why they would not proceed
with assessing me as a foster carer.She then goes on to elaborate, alleging further reasons for my application having
been turned down,
but in so doing she contradicts the information that she gave me in 2004, since
she then claimed that the only significant reasons were contained in the
confidential references provided by two or three of my personal referees, and
the evidence which she now additionally alleges against me she already held at the time she told me that
she could give me no details, apart from a final alleged point that she feels
“there is sufficient information now available to show that we would find it
difficult to have a positive working relationship with you or for you to accept
the procedural standards to which we have to work”, which is presumably due to
the ensuing conflict following their refusal to disclose the information which
I requested.

Likewise the letter of Anna
Pollard (the solicitor for Derby City Council) dated February the 22nd
2005 is referred to as indicating “many concerns”.But Anna Pollard’s alleged evidence as to why my application was
discontinued comes from sources other than my confidential references, as she
lists four different headings, including “Derby City social services”.

I thus have conflicting
information from the Fostering and Adoption Unit of the former Social Services
as to the reasons that my application to become a foster carer was turned
down.Since the confidential
references were disclosed, I have asked the former Social Services which of my
references taken in their entirety were adverse, but they have refused to
state.

It seems that Katie Harris
is simply making up reasons after the event, having previously hidden behind
the excuse that some of my personal references were confidential.Indeed, the former Social Services’ own
“Tracking” log gives “Unsatisfactory reference checks” as the “Reason for
Closure” of my application assessment on July the 19th 2004, with no
mention being made of any other alleged reasons which Katie Harris subsequently
alleges.

This suggests to me a
flagrant misrepresentation of the facts.Either the former Social Services (in collusion with their
solicitor) fabricated the additional excuses from the different sources after
the event, or they were the original reasons, in which case Katie Harris
told a falsehood in stating that she could not reveal the reasons beyond
stating “initial concerns” plus unspecified confidential adverse references.

It looks
as if Katie Harris was using the confidentiality of some of my personal
references for her own ends, and then was obliged to make up excuses for the
decision once she knew that my solicitor had the references in question.

I have written to the Local
Government Ombudsman about this flagrant misrepresentation of facts, but the
Ombudsman’s office is not investigating this part of my complaint.

Obstruction and Breaking of Data Protection Law by Katie
Harris

I also wish to express my
grave concerns about Katie Harris’s deliberate obstruction and flagrant
breaking of Data Protection Law, even after receiving correct legal advice on
the matter, as well as her attempt to hide the real reasons for refusing to
pursue my application.The Ombudsman
is not dealing with this aspect of my complaint, and the Deputy Chief Executive
Mr Michael Foote also refuses to investigate it.

The reason I say that Katie
Harris broke the Data Protection Law quite deliberately and knowingly, is that
according to the Council’s own evidence, Katie Harris should have provided me
with their file on me by October the 12th 2004, as that was when the forty days
from receiving my request ended.But
Alison Jones (the Council’s Data Protection Officer) states that a copy of the
file was provided to my solicitors on November the 24th 2004, which
is a further forty-three days later.

This problem was obviously
not due to
accidental error or ignorance as to how to handle the matter of references
which were confidential, since Alison Jones admits in her report that legal
advice given to Katie Harris on September the 14th 2004 “correctly
advised to write for consent to disclose”, and that the former Social Services
did not write to ask for consent until October the 22nd 2004, which
is 38 days later.Alison Jones states
that Katie Harris was “unable to recall why this took so long when [she] asked
her during [their] interview on the 6 December 2005”.The fact is that Katie Harris had received legal advice and
refused to follow it.

Surely this matter raises a
serious question as to the integrity and indeed suitability for post of Katie Harris, and whether
she should have responsibility for the placing of vulnerable children.If she purposely, knowingly and
obstructively breaks Data Protection Law and misrepresents information in my
case, presumably she does it with other people as well.How many families with their children in
care have had facts distorted and misrepresented at the convenience or whim of
Ms Harris?How many other potential
foster carers or adoptive parents have had their applications turned down or
false evidence given against them simply on the whim or convenience of Ms
Harris?Most candidates probably would
not manage to obtain their personal references if Ms Harris alleges that they
are adverse, and this may create discord between them and their referees, as
well as the fact that they have had their applications turned down for no good
reason.

I have complained to the
Ombudsman about these matters, and I understand that their office is handling
the fact that Katie Harris delayed well beyond the permitted forty days in
providing me with the evidence on file on me.

However, the Ombudsman is not
dealing with the ensuing issue as to Katie Harris’s suitability for post or the
related issue of her telling falsehoods as to the reasons for turning down my
application.

I should appreciate it if
you would therefore investigate this very serious matter.

Obstruction
and Breaking of Data Protection Law by Alison Jones

In addition to the above
matters, there is a matter still outstanding where I have not been
provided with requested data within forty days in line with Data Protection
Law.As long ago as May 2005, I
requested access to all information that the former Social Services held relating
to me, whatever department or unit of the former Social Services held them.

More specifically, I
reiterated this request in a letter dated June the 16th 2006 to Mr
Michael Foote, in particular requesting “the logs and records and any other
information whatsoever that Reshem Toor based her comments on”.

In a letter dated July the 3rd
2006, Mrs Alison Jones, the Council’s Data Protection Officer, informed me that
she was “liaising” with Resham Toor, and in a further letter dated July the 24th
2006 Mrs Jones stated this again.She
also made a request for some information from me in order to assist her to
locate other records on me, and so I wrote to her on July the 31st
2006 suggesting that I might obtain all the information that I need if she
provided me with the logs and records and any other information whatsoever that
Resham Toor based her comments on.In
this letter I reminded Mrs Jones of the forty-day deadline for requests for
information under the Data Protection Act.

However, it is now over
fifty days since the first of these letters from Mrs Jones (and longer since Mr
Foote at the Council received my request), and yet I have heard nothing more
apart from a letter dated August the 8th 2006 from Mrs Jones, in
which she acknowledges receipt of my letter dated July the 31st.

Since Mrs Jones herself
breaks Data Protection Law as regards the forty-day time limit for providing
information, how can she possibly be suited to the job of Data Protection
Officer?Precisely what is she paid
for?

I would appreciate it if you
would please investigate this matter as soon as possible.

Refusal to
Correct Inaccurate Data

When the former Social
Services finally did disclose my records, I found several inaccuracies, some
more serious than others.I listed seven in a letter
dated May the 17th 2005 to Katie Harris, and Mrs Alison Jones, the
Council’s Data Protection Officer, has prepared a report in which she comments
on each of seven, but
has offered no satisfactory solution.

Inaccurate Records 1 and 2 I
never saw as being very significant, but mentioned them as a matter of
accuracy.In addition they serve to
demonstrate the inefficiency and carelessness of the record keeping of the
former Social Services.Inaccurate
Records 4 and 5 have some relevance, but the main outstanding matters that need
correction are contained in Inaccurate Records 3, 6 and 7.

Inaccurate
Record 3

This relates to whether or
not I had had a child placed with me for one night by a social worker from the
former Derby Social Services.The Case
Record Sheet dated 11/05/04 from the former Social Services says that on one
occasion a social worker from Derby reception team had contemplated placing a
child with me for the night but that this did not happen.This is inaccurate, as the former Social
Services did leave the child with me for a night.

Katie Harris states in an
internal memorandum dated December the 12th 2005 that “with the
mention of the ‘overnight’ stay – we would have seen no significance in either
outcome…”.Mrs Alison Jones’s report
on this goes on to say (page 4) that Katie Harris acknowledged to Alison Jones
in an interview on December the 6th 2005 “that children are often
placed in homes for respite care” and that “an overnight stay would bear no
significance to Dr Taylor’s application”.

This is manifestly
untrue.Children who are placed in
respite care are presumably only so placed if the accommodation is approved,
and on both occasions when children were placed with me (in August 2003 and
March to April 2005) one or more social workers did check where the child(ren)
would be sleeping.

Additionally, if the
question of a child being placed with me for respite care was of no
significance, the Fostering and Adoption Unit would not have sought to follow
it up.Yet their own logs record that
they made not just one but two telephone calls attempting to gather
information on this from the Reception Unit of the former Social Services.

Thus the Fostering team’s
log dated May the 27th 2004 says that while Marian Quill (one of the
social workers who visited me to talk about fostering) was discussing with
Sally Penrose (the Fostering Manager) matters relating to my house and pets, Ms
Quill attempted to ring Resham Toor of the Reception Unit to ask about the
matter of Derby Reception team having “contemplated” placing a child with me
for a night.On this occasion Resham
Toor was unavailable to comment, according to the log.The fact that they attempted to contact her
in the middle of a discussion on whether my house was suitable for foster
children obviously indicates that they saw it as significant and relevant.

The importance and
significance of the question of whether the former Social Services had placed a
child in my care is further highlighted by the fact that the Fostering and
Adoption Unit pursued the matter of questioning Resham Toor about the incident,
as their log of July the 15th 2004 indicates that Sally Penrose
herself rang Resham Toor to pursue this question.Since a child was placed with me for a night in August
2003, it appears that either Resham Toor (who herself came to pick up the child
from my house) purposely withheld this information from the Fostering team, or
else Sally Penrose purposely left the fact out of her log of the
conversation.Yet it was clearly relevant,
as showing that Derby Social Services had considered my accommodation suitable
for the child to stay in.

The logged telephone call to
Resham Toor does not say that the incident did not happen.Since Sally Penrose rang specifically to
ask about this particular incident, why is the outcome not logged in the log
dated July the 15th 2004?I
can only assume that it is because the event would tell in my favour, and that
they did not wish to pursue my application any further for their own reasons –
possibly the fact that in this same telephone call Resham Toor made negative
comments about me.

Alison Jones does go on to
recommend deleting the words “but in the event this did not happen” from the
log of May the 11th 2004 regarding whether they had placed a child
with me, on the basis that “Dr Taylor objects to these words”.However, I do not object merely to the wording,
I object to the whole falsehood, whether originally intended or not, and this
recommendation is not satisfactory because it fails to reveal the whole
truth.The log should state the full
facts – that is, that the child was placed with me.If the former Social Services object to
this suggestion, they should give a reason for their objection.If they say that it has no significance to
my application, why do they object to telling the whole truth about it,
rather than only part of the truth?

The log as it stands
says:“On one occasion a S/W from Derby
reception team had [considered] placing a child with Imogen overnight, but in
the event this did not happen.”Merely
deleting the last eight words does not bring out the truth, which the Fostering
team went to the trouble of ringing twice to obtain from social worker
Resham Toor.The log should be made to
read, “On one occasion a S/W from Derby reception team placed a child with
Imogen overnight”.This is the exact
truth, hiding nothing.If any member
of the former Social Services wishes to say that this is trivial, they should
explain why they object to humouring me.

This is not a case where the
former Social Services should merely attach a note saying that I disagree with
their statement;it is a matter where
they should know the truth from their own records of the particular child, and
which they should properly correct.If
the fact that they placed the child with me is not on their records, then why
do they agree to amend the record at all?If it is on their records, why do they not wish to correct it
completely to reflect the full truth, rather than leaving the record ambiguous?

Inaccurate
Record 6

In the former Social
Services log of July the 19th 2004, Sally Penrose expressed the view
that potentially I “would struggle to communicate with parents, children and
S.W.s [social workers]”.These
comments appear to be merely subjective, however, as Sally Penrose does not say
how she reaches her conclusion.I
requested, in my letter of May the 17th 2005, that these comments
should be either justified or corrected.

In her report on this,
Alison Jones claims that Sally Penrose based this comment on “knowledge of [my]
application, previous contact and own knowledge and experience of working in
this specialist role”, yet nowhere in the log of this telephone call does Sally
Penrose say this.Instead, Sally
Penrose is referring to a particular conversation which she had with me on July
the 19th 2004, concerning which she states in her log that “Without
divulging information received it was a difficult t/c [telephone conversation]
as [I] kept repeating the need to know about issues raised to allow [me] the
opportunity to adjust”.The fact that
Sally Penrose comments that she found the conversation difficult is very
subjective.Anybody may find some
conversations “difficult” in the course of their day-to-day life, but Sally
Penrose here gives her reasons for finding it difficult, and these reasons were
not that I shouted, swore, blamed her personally, or became abusive in
any sense of the word – despite the fact that I made the call in response to
some upsetting news that the Fostering team had sent me.

Significantly, Sally Penrose
ends her log of this conversation by saying that she had agreed to discuss the
matter again with Katie Harris.This
is not the action of a trained and experienced social worker who has just
received a telephone call that finally confirms their decision against pursuing
my application!It rather suggests
that she wrote up her log after deciding with Katie Harris that they
still would not pursue my application, as evidenced in a letter to me from
Sally Penrose dated July the 19th 2004.

Nowhere does Sally Penrose
and/or Katie Harris state in subsequent correspondence with me that their
decision to turn my application down was influenced by any comments or attitude
displayed in this telephone conversation between Sally Penrose and me, instead
they continued to insist that they could give me no further information as to
why my application had been turned down.

Alison Jones has neither
justified nor corrected the comment.The former Social Services should therefore delete it from their log.

Inaccurate
Record 7

As to Inaccurate Record 7, I
disputed some comments about me apparently made in a telephone call between the
social worker Resham Toor and Sally Penrose.The log says that Resham Toor said that my “attitude toward parents
became more judgemental” and that I eventually “became a ‘nuisance’ as was
regarded as a ‘do-gooder’”.I
requested that these comments be either justified or corrected.

A letter dated February the 10th
2006 from Mr David Romaine, Scrutiny and Complaints Manager, says that “Ms Toor has
confirmed that the comments on the file reflect what she said at the time”, and
suggests that Mrs Toor based her comments on “her experience of [me] and on her
dealings with [me] over a particular child”, but the comments are still not justified.Any experience Mrs Toor has of me is
presumably contained in the records of one or more particular children, which I
have requested but not received.

In her report on this, Mrs
Alison Jones states that “What is documented here is a summary of Reshan’s
comments and not of an opinion formed by the social worker writing up the
notes”.This suggests that it is
merely a subjective opinion being expressed by Resham Toor.

I do not agree with Alison
Jones’s recommendation that the record be left standing, and that they merely
refer readers to my letter of May the 17th2005.Alison Jones
herself acknowledges that “after such a long time it will not be possible to
remember exact details of conversations, so it is not possible to corroborate
this entry”.She is effectively saying that they do not know either way, and
thus I contend that the comments should be deleted from the records.The records that they keep on me should be
accurate irrespective of any further letters which I may or may not send to them.

Indeed, in her letter of
July the 4th 2005, Katie Harris states that the “matters, which you
raise as factual inaccuracies, I have conceded”.Since the validity of my complaints of inaccuracies is not in
dispute, they should be corrected.Katie Harris claims that “the only people able to request sight of this
file are yourself or a fostering social worker should you wish to make contact
with this department again”.This is
not necessarily true, however, since the situation may arise where Derby City
Council is requested to give relevant information to some other body or
department.

On June the 28th
2005 I wrote to the then Director of Social Services at Norman House on Friargate,
as advised in a leaflet on Complaints which was sent to me by the former Social
Services in October 2004.I complained
about the treatment I had received from the Fostering and Adoption Team of the
former Derby Social Services.In
response I received a letter dated July the 8th 2005 from Mr Michael
Moody, Business and Customer Care Manager, who said that he was “determining
what would be the best route to deal with this”, and that he or a colleague would contact me
shortly to advise me of this.However,
there were further delays before I finally received a letter dated September
the 1st 2005 from Mr Moody, in which he said that he could not deal
with the matter, and advised me to take the matter to the Ombudsman.

I was unsure what to do, because
the leaflet that the former Social Services sent me in October 2004 also gives
Stage 3 of the Complaints Procedure, which says that if I am not happy with the
outcome, I can ask an Independent Review Panel to look into it, but Mr Moody
did not mention this.The leaflet goes
on to say that I can also complain to the Ombudsman, presumably after this
Stage 3.I thought that the Council was expected to guide me through the
complaints process, but Mr Moody failed to do this.

I therefore wrote to the head
of former Social Services again, and then to the Ombudsman as I had received no
answer from her.The Ombudsman passed
the matter onto Corporate Services in Derby.

I was not satisfied with the
results of the investigation which the Corporate Services carried out, but they
still did not offer me the option of taking my case to an Independent Review
Panel, instead advising me to go the Ombudsman.

However, it seems to me that
Derby City Council should have properly advised me, and informed me of how to
pass my complaint onto an Independent Review Panel before it went to the
Ombudsman.I have requested Derby City
Council to give me this opportunity, but this request has been refused.

The Ombudsman and the
Council have admitted that my complaint was mishandled, and the Council has
apologised for this.Further, the
Ombudsman’s office is asking the Council to award me compensation for this.But I am more interested in seeing my complaint now correctly
handled.

The Council has deprived me
of my right to a hearing before an Independent Review Panel, and apparently
they have told the Ombudsman that they do not see any benefit to me in going
back into that procedure now.But it
is not for them to make this decision.They have wronged me, and this wrong should be reversed.

Conclusion

In brief, then, my
complaints and concerns are (1) that the Fostering and Adoption Team of the
former Derby Social Services failed to follow proper procedure in refusing to
continue assessing my application;(2)that the Fostering and Adoption Team of the
former Derby Social Services seriously misrepresented the facts, and attempted
to hide the real reason for non-acceptance of my application by falsely making
out that the reasons were contained in confidential references from three of my
personal referees;(3) that Katie
Harris has shown herself unfit for her post due to her obstruction and breaking
of Data Protection Law;(4) that Alison
Jones has shown herself unfit for her post due to her breaking of Data
Protection Law, and that she still fails to provide me with requested
information;(5) that the former Social
Services hold inaccurate information on me and refuse to correct it, in spite
of having the errors pointed out to them;(6) that Derby City Council grossly mishandled my complaint and failed
to follow correct complaints procedure, in particular that they continue to
refuse me my right to a hearing before an Independent Review Panel.

In a letter of June the 27th
2006, Mr Michael Foote (the Deputy Chief Executive) says that Derby City
Council cannot carry out parallel or subsequent investigations into my
complaint.However, the Ombudsman’s
Investigator Miss Hilary Clarke made it clear in a letter to you dated April
the 5th 2006 that the Ombudsman’s office is not pursuing all the
aspects of my complaint.

Specifically, the Ombudsman
is not investigating any of the first four aspects enumerated above.The fifth aspect (i.e. the refusal
to correct inaccurate records) is not resolved, as the Ombudsman’s investigator
has thus far failed to pursue the matter properly.The sixth aspect has been confirmed as a valid complaint by both
the Council and the Ombudsman’s office, but the Ombudsman is not pursuing the
matter of my right to a hearing before an Independent Review Panel.

I should therefore
appreciate it if you would do all you can to rectify all the points made above.